Dreaming Awake
by Lady Raion
Summary: AU Squinoa. His life had come down to an act of revenge, the only thing that could settle his past. Focused on the death of another, his life is thrown into confusion when a chance meeting forces him to consider life for the first time. DISCONTINUED
1. I: Dreaming of Fate

Note: This story is receiving a complete make over. Basically, it's a completely different story, but with the same title. This one is more in keeping with my usual style, something I think I will do better at, and be more comfortable with. I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1

_In the city of neon lights and eternal rain, an endless army of faceless people march passed, entering and disappearing in a blur of noise and confusion, mere pieces of scenery in the waking dream of some celestial being. A solid gray sky, spread out over the tops of the towering buildings like a silver canopy shields the stars from the eyes of those unworthy, those trapped within the city that makes you forget there is a world beyond its borders. Ensnared by an invisible beast that lashes out with fangs of misery and sorrow, those who wish to escape the ordinary and mundane life bestowed upon them can do nothing but dream. To dream endlessly, to blind yourself to that which is real until fantasy is the only reality you know... To shatter the barrier that separates the waking from the dreaming... In this way, even the darkest of souls can have beautiful dreams..._

* * *

"It'll be fine."

The train shuddered and shook as it hugged the iron rails in a death grip, giving off the occasional screech in the otherwise silent car. Shadows danced across the aisle and the backs of the seats, flitting in through the windows as if falling from the sky itself.

"It doesn't matter either way. He's been a thorn in our sides for quite some time..."

Eyes the color of the ocean but with the edge of an icy blade darted from side to side before settling on the attendant who was slowly making her way down the center of the aisle. The bubbly blonde woman, feeling a pair of eyes upon her, turned to him with a wide smile, but allowed it to fade after seeing his expression. Normal, and inconspicuous as he tried to be, his glare still sent the woman scurrying into the next car as quickly as she could in her heels.

"This way, I benefit more," he continued. "It won't affect you in the least."

He sighed, the lecturing words from the man at the other end of his cell phone becoming tiresome. He glanced around the mostly deserted train car once more, satisfied to see the only other inhabitant snoring loudly in his seat toward the front.

"Enough," he growled finally. "I've waited years for this, you won't steal it from me. I'm doing everyone a favor, anyway. I'll remove that thorn from our side, and anyone associated with him. I'll take care of my own unfinished business. Keep out of it."

He slammed the off button with his thumb before glancing out the window once more. The drops of rain streaming down the window distorted the gray city in the distance. He'd heard it rained almost non-stop in Deling City. That was fine. He'd complete his mission and never return. He would eagerly hammer the final nail in Caraway's coffin and wash his hands clean of the blood that had collected there. Everything in his life came down to this.

The train entered a tunnel, darkness flooding the space where light once prevailed, casting the man's face in shadows as he watched the occasional orange-tinted light flash by. It appeared as though he were transfixed with the blackness outside, and yet, while he peered into that void, he could see only that which was invisible to all else.

_Dust floated in the air, suspended as if that single moment in time had been frozen forever. The heavy, booted footsteps pounded rhythmically in his ears, coming closer... dangerously close. A light blinked within the gray rectangle of light that served as a doorway, and he backed up until he could feel icy brick lined against his spine. The circular light swept the room, briefly peeking in through the iron grating that separated his haven from the hell outside, before moving on to rest in the opposite corner of the room._

_"Nothing here."_

_"Are you sure?"_

_He dared to crawl closer at the sound of that voice, the deep, dark voice that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He dared to peep out into the world beyond, seeing the tall, dark-haired man with soulless eyes standing in the doorway. His head turned, eyes swinging around to glare in his direction. He just managed to duck beneath the grating before that terrible gaze caught him. The footsteps sounded again, sounding heavier with the promise of death as they came closer. The brilliant white light seeped in once more and he huddled against the wall opposite the one he sat against before, knowing that the man would hear his heart pounding in his chest and find him._

_"Guess you're right. There's nothing here. Let's go."_

_He chanced a sigh of relief, but couldn't make himself move. His tiny limbs still trembled, and he couldn't force himself up from the dirt where he lay, praying for someone to rescue him. He waited, at least a day if not more, waited for someone, anyone to come, and yet, no one ever did..._

"We are now arriving at Deling City. Please gather your things and prepare to disembark."

He closed his eyes and allowed himself a deep breath before snatching up the single suitcase he'd brought along. Glancing out the window, he could now see the inside of the train station, the blurring scenery slowly coming to a standstill as the train screeched to a halt. The doors slid open a few seconds later, and he stepped toward the exit, stopping for a brief moment as he considered waking the man who was still snoring in the front seat. Shaking his head he walked on, leaving the man behind to his own mistakes and stepping out into the dim light of the station. Friends and family members were lined up along a short stone barricade, eagerly awaiting the return of a loved one. He shoved past them, not once looking back at the joyous reunions taking place behind him. _How foolish, to depend on their returning..._

He checked the silver watch on his wrist before moving on, keeping his eyes trained ahead, never once allowing his vision to stray from his destination... aside from checking his watch again, then glancing around to make sure he didn't look out of place. No, every other person in the station was doing the exact same thing, he was fine. He checked it again... _twelve-thirty-three..._ As if on cue someone bumped elbows with him, but he didn't bother looking at the person, appearing to brush it off as an accident.

He waited until he was outside to jam both of his gloved hands into his coat pockets, as if in reaction to the cold. There, in his right pocket, were a bundle of papers and such that weren't there a minute earlier. He showed no sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred, and instead stepped to the corner where a line of taxis were waiting.

After nearly half an hour of weaving through traffic, he arrived at the Deling City Hotel, where he fully expected to have reservations, though he had never called them in himself.

The hotel was extravagant, quite different from what he was used to, with shining marble floors and a crystal chandelier that hung down from the high ceiling. Down a red-carpeted set of stairs to his right, the sound of a piano floated up, followed by a smooth feminine voice that tugged at his mind, causing him to momentarily loose concentration and become ensnared by the melody. Shaking his head, he pulled the papers from his pocket and thumbed through until he found the fake I.D. he knew would be there.

With utter confidence, he strode up to the front desk and handed her the flawlessly forged card. "I believe I have a reservation."

The woman studied the card before typing something into her computer. "Ah, yes, Mr. Lee, room 224." She stepped into the back room and returned with two cards in a thin paper sheath sporting the hotel's logo. "Here you are, enjoy your stay."

He nodded and returned a fake, practiced smile to equal her own. Once he was alone inside the elevator, he took a moment to study his new I.D. _So I'll be Mr. Lee for a while... at least it's easier to remember than Mr. Umenokoji... they really have to stop generating these randomly..._

In the safety of his room, where he knew there would be no security cameras (the hotel had been previously checked for that) he searched through the rest of his papers until he found a small, handwritten one. There was a time, and a place written, but nothing more. He tore it into tiny pieces and flushed it down the toilet, having memorized the information.

Night had fallen and the rain was still pouring in torrents as he walked along the path beneath the local train railing. He checked his watch and glanced around. Seeing no one, he leaned against the chain-link fence that separated the two sides of the path, and scowled at the screeching, bumping sound above him as the train passed overhead.

"So, you're really going it alone on this one?" he heard a voice ask from the other side of the fence.

"That's the plan. What do you have?"

From the corner of his eye, he saw the blonde man shrug. "Nothing much. The train to Timber will be down for a month, though. They're doing some big upgrades, apparently. If you're planning to escape to some place outside Galbadian territory, and I'm sure you are, then you'll have to time it just right. You'll wanna get a ticket in advance, too. I'm sure that with transportation to Timber being halted for a month, a lot of people are going to be trying to catch that next train out."

"I'll do that. What about blue prints?"

"There are only three sets of blue prints to the Presidential Palace. The original is in the palace itself. There are two copies, one in City Hall, for records, and another in the police station, in case of emergency. All of them are closely guarded, for just this sort of thing. The palace itself is also closely guarded. There is a very small opening, in between guard shifts, but the guard schedule is another closely guarded secret." The informant chuckled. "They really did think of everything."

"It's nothing I can't get passed. Nothing I won't get passed."

"You're starting to sound like me, Squall. I'd tell you how stupid you are for wanting to do this on your own, but I'm sure Cid has covered that already."

"A million times and more."

"Really... I'm not sure if you're a genius, or just incredibly stupid. On the one hand, they'll never see it coming. After all, who would be dumb enough to try and attack the president of Galbadia all by himself? They'll never know it's you. Hell, they think you're dead. And if you succeed, Vinzer will take over in his place, and Galbadia will be ours. On the other hand... it's insane. Their intelligence team is top notch. I would know, of course..."

"You're not thinking of betraying us, are you Seifer?" Squall asked, without looking at him. "We put you in that position thinking we could trust you. You won't prove us wrong, will you? If you did... I'd have to fire you..."

"Fire me? I know what that leads to... no one leaves the syndicate and lives to tell about it... except you. That is what you're planning, right?"

"I'm a different story. I wasn't just some stray kid they picked up... unlike you."

"Nice," Seifer sneered. "Well, I'm out of this little operation. That's all the info I've got, anyhow. I'm still on the low end. Good luck. You'll need it..."

* * *

"I'm sorry, sir. There are currently no tickets for the train to Timber on sale. Check back tomorrow."

Squall didn't bother to acknowledge her any further, walking away without another word. He was already irritated at having slept half the day, something highly unusual for him, and now he couldn't secure those train tickets that were so vital to his plan. He leaned against the wall just outside the train station, staring aimlessly into the gray sky as a light drizzle sprinkled water over his face. He ignored it, as if it wasn't there at all.

A yell broke out from the constant clamor of the crowded area behind him, along with the scuffling of quick footsteps, but this, too, went ignored, at least until the cause of the commotion became forcefully acquainted with the ground at Squall's feet. Squall studied the man for a moment, who was now flat on his face and clutching a small black purse, before realizing the thief had tripped over his foot, which was accidentally in the path of the doorway.

A raven-haired blur sped past him, coming to an abrupt halt next to the fallen criminal and snatching up the purse the man held before promptly smacking him in the head with it. "Asshole..." the woman murmured, straightening her clothes before turning to the man behind her.

It had been her intention to thank him, and yet, the words instantly died on her lips. It had been his intention to ignore her, to look away from her, but he couldn't seem to do that, either. Her eyes were wide and bright, like that of a child, her midnight locks plastered to her porcelain cheeks and hanging limply down her shoulders. She was ordinary, yet special, normal but beautiful. He couldn't say what it was that struck him about her, what it was that kept his gaze locked as one with hers. She was just a woman. Nothing more, and nothing less.

It was as if by looking at her, he had stolen the very thoughts from her mind. She could do nothing but stare, like a deer caught in the headlights, she suddenly found her self immobilized prey to the man before her. Strong hands suddenly clamped down on her shoulders, and her heart seemed to jump into her throat. Whether it was fear, excitement or a mixture of both that pumped through her veins as he grabbed her, she wasn't sure. As quickly as he took hold of her, he let her go, shoving her aside and raising his now freed arm in an expert block before knocking away the knife held in the purse thief's hand. A punch to the man's nose sent him back to his knees, and her mysterious savior brushed past her, his trance broken by the abrupt attack.

"I suggest you leave this area before he comes after you again," he advised, leaving her to fend for herself.

"Hey, wait!" she called, her brain jolting back into working order as she chased after him. When he didn't show any signs of slowing down, she grabbed on to his arm and forced him to turn around and look at her. "Hey, I just wanted to thank you. You helped me out twice."

"It was an accident."

"The first time maybe, but the second time-"

"The last thing I need is to be involved with a stranger's murder," he interrupted her. "Now let me go."

"So that's it?" she asked. "You did it out of selfishness?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you."

"Then don't," he returned, attempting to pull away from her.

She tightened her hold on his arm and sought out his gaze until once again she could stare into the icy void through which each thought and emotion he owned seemed to pass. "My name's Rinoa," she said softly, her voice threatening not to work. "I at least deserve to know the name of the man that saved me."

She could have been anyone. She could have been the president's secretary, the wife or daughter of a palace guard. To tell her the truth was to risk his own life, and even more important to him, his revenge. Yet, staring into her eyes, he found that the lies that usually came second nature to him refused to leave his throat, as though she were some sort of witch or gypsy that had cast a spell over him. "I'm Squall," he said, without permission from his brain. It wasn't speaking to him, anyway, having been enchanted once more into a useless stupor.

"That's... a beautiful name," she smiled, stretching her small, pink lips into a smooth and easy expression that looked more natural than any other on her face. Before he could reply, the moment was interrupted by a loud beep from Rinoa's wrist, and she cursed beneath her breath. "I'm late." She frowned briefly before returning her gaze to his. She allowed an almost wistful smile to distort her features as she said, "Well, I have to go. Thank you, though. I'm... glad I met you, Squall."

With that she turned and ran, as if she were afraid that if she didn't leave fast enough, she wouldn't leave at all. He watched her, his eyes drawn to her every movement until she was out of sight, before sighing to himself in frustration.

A woman. A complication. Nothing less... and nothing more...

* * *

Another Note: In regards to the story previously placed beneath this title (I really liked the title and thought it would fit this new story well) yes, I took it down. I didn't like it, and didn't think I could finish it anyway. I originally had just intended to replace the chapters all ready listed under the original story with the new ones, then it occurred to me that some people wouldn't be able to review, having all ready reviewed for those chapters. At any rate, I'm sorry for not being able to finish the original, but I like this one much better. And, to clear things up a bit, I'm not really going for the 'love at first sight' angle here, more the 'infatuation at first sight that grows into something more' angle. Hope you enjoy!


	2. II: Dreaming of Life

Chapter 2

The Presidential Palace was eerily quiet during the day, empty of guests that usually came at night, when parties and conferences were held to the benefit of the President's schedule. Despite this, there were still nearly a thousand guards patrolling the palace halls and wall perimeters, eight hundred and twenty-three on staff at the moment, to be exact. There were four for every doorway, two inside and two out, and at least one at the end of every hallway. Flipping his I.D. out and smiling at guard number three hundred sixty-five, Seifer easily passed through the halls of the palace, as though it were his God-given right to be there.

The night before he promised himself he wouldn't interfere in business that wasn't his, told himself that it was foolish to jeopardize his own life to help a man that wanted no help. In the end, he realized he wanted to see Caraway fall almost as badly as his reclusive comrade. After all, he hadn't been a 'stray kid' until Caraway had decided that Mister and Misses Almasy were no longer of any use to him. He hated his parents for getting mixed up in that kind of life in the first place. Didn't they know where it would eventually lead? Did they think of that at all when they had a child? Still, what kind of man would he be if he didn't avenge them by at least helping to put Caraway in his grave? And of course, there was no way he'd let Leonhart have all the glory to himself.

A bit of reconnaissance work had scored him the details of the blue print location within the palace. In fact, when he had seen where it was hidden, he almost laughed. The hall where the hidden room was located was deep within the palace, and highly restricted. Even he shouldn't have been able to get in. Luckily, it wasn't far from the cafeteria, and most of the guards recognized Seifer from his days of gophering for the higher-ups, fetching the coffee and doughnuts, so they would let him by. He'd always made sure to make friendly conversation, to be as charming as possible, for just this sort of occasion.

In this closely guarded hallway, directly across from the entrance to the corridor he now traveled on, was a plain steel door, hidden beneath heavy burgundy curtains with gold trim that were exactly identical to the rest of the curtains down the hall. This hallway was empty, as even most of the guards were not permitted to know the location of the room, but every possible way in had been covered. He'd easily gotten past it all.

There it was, the curtain was directly in front of him now, all he'd have to do is...

"Excuse me," a stern yet feminine voice broke into his thoughts, just as someone stepped between him and his ultimate goal. "Who are you and what is your business here?"

He looked down to see in front of him a woman in a perfectly pressed and fitted navy uniform. Long golden bangs framed her face, the rest pinned up against the back of her head. Her sapphire eyes glared at him from beneath long lashes, resting expectantly on his face.

He smiled at her, instantly turning on his charm as if he were flipping a switch. "Well, hello there, lovely. I'm just passing through." As he did with the few guards that hadn't recognized him on his way in, he flipped his I.D. in front of her face and was about to close it abruptly when she caught it and read it more closely.

"Class C, Intelligence Department. Funny, that's the last place I'd expect someone like you to be. The hallway is off limits to anyone outside of Class A."

"Oh, and I suppose you meet those qualifications?"

She smiled, though it wasn't in the least bit pleasant. "I'm Quistis Trepe, head of the palace guard. I'm beyond Class A. Now, I suggest you leave before I decide to report you to the President himself."

"As you wish, ma'am," he replied, giving a wide bow before turning on his heel and walking away.

Seifer quickly made his way outside of the palace and down the street, walking several blocks until he came to an unoccupied phone booth. Inside, he slid a coin in and dialed the number he'd memorized a few days earlier. "Yes, I'd like to leave a message for room 224. Yeah... tell him, 'They're here'. Thanks."

* * *

_'I'm... Glad I met you, Squall.' _

He rubbed his forehead wearily, trying to drive that voice from his mind. It had been the first thing he thought about when he collapsed in his bed the night before, and the first thing to rise from the depths of his consciousness that morning. He knew it was just a voice, no matter how melodic and pleasant it had been, yet still, it seemed to haunt him.

"Why would anybody be glad they met me, anyway?" he murmured, staring out the window of the small restaurant where he'd chosen to eat lunch... the small restaurant that was across from the train station.

Of course the only reason he'd gone back to the train station that day was to check on those tickets again, and this time, he was successful in getting one. The fact that he'd hung around for almost an hour afterward... well, it wasn't like he had anything better to do. That it was around the same time he'd seen her the day before was sheer coincidence. Not that it mattered. She'd been nowhere in sight.

Squall shook his head. He couldn't afford to be distracted, even if he did have the time to spare. Women were nothing but trouble. It was an attitude that had been drilled into their heads since day one, a rule that had been adopted after the syndicate had nearly been destroyed by the police, all because a woman had suckered the information out of one of their top agents. Still, her smile, her laughter, it had seemed so sincere...

_But it isn't,_ he reminded himself quickly. _Even if she was just an ordinary woman, she'd run away the second she knew the truth about me. It's not worth even thinking about. I just wish her voice would leave me alone. This is what I get for playing the hero. If I had let the thief stab her, I wouldn't have this problem now. By that point, she hadn't said a word._

He knew it wasn't true. He knew that he couldn't have let her be killed like that, it simply wasn't his nature. If only he'd gotten away from her sooner, if only she hadn't been so persistent...

Every head in the room turned to stare at him as his fist made forceful contact with the wooden table where he was seated. He didn't notice, too wound up in his own thoughts. It was ridiculous to even worry about it. He'd just have to put her out of his mind and act like he'd never even seen her face.

After coming to this decision, he decided he'd head back to his hotel room and steer clear of the train station until it was time to make his escape. In the lobby, the receptionist called out to him and handed him a small piece of paper with the handwritten words, 'They're here' on it.

"It was a man, I could tell from his voice, but he didn't leave a name," she explained.

"That's all right," he replied with a nod. "Thanks."

He knew at once that it had to be Seifer. He was the only other agent of the Esthar syndicate that knew Squall was there. He'd just confirmed Cid's suspicions that the Balamb syndicate was moving in on their territory.

Squall tore the piece of paper into tiny bits before sending it to the Deling City sewers via the toilet once more. If Balamb's agents were here, there was no telling where they could be. They could even have someone on the hotel's maid staff, someone that would come in his room and go through his garbage in an effort to pick up any little bit of information they could. It was better if Balamb thought they were unaware, and he intended to keep it that way. He'd have to get rid of anything that held any incriminating information, including his cell phone, which had the number to headquarters stored in its history.

With a small pocketknife he pried the outer casing open and tore the wires loose and snapped up the other components. He threw the casing in the trash, flushed the smaller pieces, and threw the rest out the window. There would no putting it back together.

_I don't know what's more of a pain in the ass... Balamb, or that woman..._

* * *

To the untrained eye, City Hall was completely unguarded. Their security cameras were well hidden beneath the stone ledges around the outside of the building. The man in the dark coat near the entrance could have passed for a common loiterer, were he not wise to such tricks. It seemed overkill to put so much man power into guarding one little secret, yet, looking out over the sea of gray rain and dark umbrellas, it seemed nothing was to be taken lightly in Deling City.

_It's only sprinkling a little..._

The rain didn't bother him in the least as he sat on the bench across the street from City Hall, wondering how long he could sit there before the man in the dark coat got suspicious. In the time that he had been there, several cars had passed him by on the street, and he paid them no mind. He wasn't sure what it was, then, that made him look toward the nearby corner when a sleek, expensive black car pulled up and the door on the side opposite the curb opened up. Squinting against the distance and the raindrops, he could just make out a tall, blonde-haired man walking up onto the sidewalk and opening the door there. He too, opened up an umbrella, holding it over the woman he helped out from the car.

Squall's heartbeat quickened, unexplainably, at the sight of the long, dark hair that trailed down her back. It could have been anyone, any random woman, and yet his mind instantly thought of Rinoa. He watched intently as the man offered his companion the umbrella, but she shook her head, holding a delicate hand up in refusal. The blonde gentlemen then leaned in for a kiss, but at the last moment, she turned her head aside, offering him her cheek instead. His reaction was obviously one of anger, but she waved it off, quickly walking away, coming closer to Squall.

Squall averted his eyes as soon as she had turned in his direction. He certainly wasn't about to be caught staring. He hoped that even if it was Rinoa, she would just walk past him. Such was not to be.

"Well, imagine running into you here," that voice said, and he knew it would just be more words that would haunt his mind tirelessly. He thought if he ignored her, she would walk away, but instead, she sat down next to him. "It's a nice day, don't you think?"

"It's raining," Squall replied, momentarily forgetting that he wanted to avoid this woman and her enchanting voice.

She shrugged. "I don't mind the rain. Apparently you don't either, or you'd have an umbrella out like the rest of the people here."

"You could've had one," he returned, and inwardly cringed. He hadn't wanted her to know that he had watched her.

"My fiancé hates the weather here. He wants me to move away with him someday, but I've grown to enjoy the daily showers. I'm not so sure I want to leave." She turned to him, a wide smile on her face. "What do you think?"

"I think your fiancé would be very unhappy if he knew you were here talking to me."

"Hey, I'm an adult, I can talk to whoever I want," she huffed. "It's not like he owns me."

"If you feel that way, then maybe... forget it..."

"No, tell me."

"It's none of my business," he offered. "It's not my place to say."

She grabbed his hand from its resting place of his knee, and instantly his entire body tensed at the jolt of warmth that came with it. She didn't seem to notice his reaction, grasping his hand tighter. "You're one of those quiet guys that doesn't talk much, huh?" she questioned, leaning in close to him. "I know what you're saying, though. You were gonna say that if I felt that way, I shouldn't marry him, right? I can read it in your eyes. I understand. It's not like I go around talking to strange men all the time."

"Really," he broke in, yanking his hand away with some reluctance. "You seem to be making a habit of it."

"Believe it or not, you're the first. It's all your fault anyway."

"How is that?" he questioned, scooting back from her.

"I feel drawn to you," she admitted, that calm, serene little smile still playing on her lips. He wasn't sure what the expression on his face at that moment looked like, whether it was one of fear, or surprise, or a million other emotions he might feel. Whatever it was, it made her giggle. "No, seriously. It's your fault for not talking to me the other day when I first met you, and for being here now."

He shook his head, hoping to clear his mind of his initial shock at her words. "I did talk to you that day."

She rolled her eyes. "All of about three sentences."

"There was nothing more to say."

Rinoa's watch beeped again, and after checking the time, she turned back to him with a smile. "It looks like I'm going to be late for work because of you. The least you could do is walk me there."

"Because of me? I didn't even acknowledge you, you came and sat down-"

"All right, all right," she laughed, standing up from the bench and attempting to pull him up as well. "Just walk me to Deling City Hotel, okay? It's not far from here."

He frowned. "What do you need to go there for?"

"I work there, downstairs in the bar, actually. I play the piano and sing, occasionally." She cocked her head to the side, a grin curving her lips. "You should come watch me tonight."

Every muscle in his body urged him to say yes, but instead, he replied, "I have other plans."

Her face fell instantly, the smile gone from her lips and the light now absent from her eyes, like a child who had just been denied their favorite toy. She released his hand, allowing her own to fall limp at her side. "I see. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" he sighed, averting his eyes from the heart-breaking disappointment on her face.

"For bothering you. I thought, for a moment, that you were different from everyone else here." She turned away from him, staring out into the constantly shifting mass of pedestrians that marched passed them. "Sometimes, when I look at them, it occurs to me that they are nothing more than mindless drones whose purpose it is only to exist, and nothing more. Only to be, but never really live. Even my fiancé is like that sometimes. He's never once come to see me perform. He always says... that he has other plans," she explained without turning to face him.

"So you thought I would be a replacement for him?"

"No, of course not," she answered quickly. "I just wanted..."

"He could have driven you there," Squall interrupted. "Why did you bother getting out to walk?"

"I didn't feel like being separated from the world by a plate of glass. There's something much more real about walking. I just thought..." she allowed her voice to trail off, peering at him through the corner of her eye. She was saying too much, and she barely knew this man. She was on the verge of spilling out all her fears, things she'd never even told her soon-to-be husband, to this man that didn't seem to care at all. "I'll go by myself, then... like I always do."

"So basically you're searching for something to prove that you're alive?" he asked, the words bringing her to an abrupt halt.

She turned back to him, an indecipherable look passing over her features, which were partially obscured by the thick midnight bangs that fell carelessly over her face. When she looked at him like that, with her head cocked to the side and her eyes glittering thoughtfully... when she looked at him like that, it seemed she was peering straight into his soul.

"Maybe," she said finally. "Maybe, all I want is to feel alive, to know that all this is real. In a place like this, day after day of all the same, fake people with the same fake smile... maybe I just want something or someone to show me that I'm not like them."

"So you'll define who and what you are by someone else?" he asked disbelievingly. "What happens when that person isn't there anymore to prove to you that you're alive? Will you just lay down and die?"

He was so certain she wouldn't have an answer that when she did reply, he was startled. "If that person was the real thing, then just the memories of having something that was real like that will remind me that I am, in fact, alive, and I won't take it for granted. So... what do you have to say to that Mr. Know-It-All?" she wondered, her seriousness making way for a more frivolous tone. "You're speechless," she giggled, then offered a delicate hand to him once again. "So you might as well walk me there, anyway."

"I guess..." he began quietly, so low that she almost didn't hear him, "that it couldn't hurt that much... just to walk you there."

She took his hand for the second time that day, and her serene, ethereal smile returned. "Maybe... you're not like them either..."


	3. III: Dreaming of Memories

Disclaimer: I do not own the song used in this chapter. I'm not sure what it's called, by do know it's owned by Yoko Kanno.

_And I listen for the whisper_

_Of your sweet insanity_

_While I formulate denials_

_Of your effect on me_

- "A Stranger" by Perfect Circle

Chapter 3

_"This is the path we chose to walk. There's no going back now. Will you walk with me?"_

_Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, an ominous sound that told a tale of pain and anguish, of anger and other black emotions that settled on the horizon, slowly drifting closer to blanket their formerly safe world. It wouldn't occur to him until later that the safety he knew so well was just an illusion, a glossy façade made to hide the terrible truth that lurked underneath._

_He awoke to the sound of a car engine late in the night, something that was foreign to him, as they rarely had visitors to their happy little home. His eyes fluttered open, blinding light flooding his small room as the headlights shone through his window and illuminated that which was previously hidden in shadows. Through the crack in his door, he could see his father and mother standing in the hall, facing each other with an expression he had never seen of their faces before. They were terrified._

_"I... what are you planning to do?" his mother asked, wringing her hands in desperation as she stared into her husband's eyes. "Who knows how many there are? We don't stand a chance against them, we have to run!"_

_"They'll just keep hunting us," he replied, tightening his grip on the riffle in his arms. "There's nowhere left to run. Hide the kids. I'm going to face them."_

_Her fragile hands locked onto her husband's arm, tears beginning to stream down the delicate curves of her face. He wanted to call to her then, ask her not to cry, but the slamming of four car doors kept him curled up in his bed, trembling wildly with fear of the unknown, terrified all the more because he didn't understand what was going on. Instead he could only watch as she leaned against his father's back and whispered something in his ear. His father's shoulders instantly went rigid and he pulled away from her._

_"If you won't walk with me," he said softly, not bothering to turn around, "then I'll walk alone."_

_"Wait, Laguna, please!" she pleaded, but he kept walking away from her, as if she hadn't spoken a word. She glanced through the crack in the door, then back at the retreating form of the man she loved, before rushing into the room with an anguished cry. "Squall, get up, come with me. Don't be afraid, okay."_

_"What's going on?" he asked, his tiny voice shaking despite his best efforts to be brave._

_She didn't answer as she yanked open the door to his sister's room and called for her, unable to come up with the right words, despite the frantic search of her mind. Everything was happening so fast..._

_She paused in front of the door to her room, the vent at the bottom of the wall catching her attention. She ran for it, dropping to her knees and pulling off the grating as soon as she came to it. There was a small space, only small enough for her youngest child there, a space where her husband kept the weapons stashed. She pulled the riffles, pistols, revolvers, and boxes of ammo out, shoving them under the bed before she turned to her son, who stood watching her with a confused and frightened look that tore at her heart._

_"I'll have to leave you," she whispered, barely holding back her own tears. "But only for a little while. You'll have to stay here, don't make a sound." She helped him crawl into the opening, then forced a smile as he turned back to stare at her, eyes glassy and forlorn. "Squall, if anything happens, I want you to remember something. It's never too late to change the path you walk."_

_With that last bit of advice and a whispered 'I love you' she pushed the metal vent back into place and hurried off to hide her daughter. He would never see her again..._

The chain link rattled behind his back and the iron tracks above him wailed as a train went rushing by. He hated this place. Every time he was deep in thought, lost to memories of the past, a train would pass overhead and shake him from his reverie. He halfway suspected that Seifer chose that spot for that very reason. He knew how much Squall hated to be kept from diving deeper into the recesses of his mind.

"I can always tell when you're thinking about it," a voice came from behind him. "It's like you lose all sense of reality. You didn't even realize I was here. It's like all the instincts Cid trained you to have just go out the window."

"Shut up, Seifer."

The blonde chuckled. "So you got my message yesterday, right?"

"Yes."

"One of them just stepped right out in front of me... I guess she thought I wouldn't recognize her. Foolish on their part, but it seems that they're in deeper than we are. She said she was head of the palace guard. I'm not sure how much truth there is to that, but she did manage to get access to a restricted hallway."

"I take it that's where you ran into her? If you got access to that restricted hall, what's to stop her from doing the same? What were you doing jeopardizing your mission, anyway?"

"She was wearing the uniform of the head guard, though I guess she could have stolen it. Anyway, I was trying to help you out, you jackass. I found out where the blueprints are, but there's no way I'm going to risk my job a second time to get them."

"I've still got a month," Squall replied.

"You'll need it, I'm sure. Anyway, I just thought I'd tell you to watch out. With Balamb here you can't trust anyone. Watch your back." Seifer walked away with that, leaving Squall to his thoughts once more.

_Can't trust anyone... Rinoa could be one of them... Could that be why she was so interested in me?_

His heart beat faster at the thought of her, involuntarily. He had walked her to the hotel the day before, and excused himself from her presence, hoping that he could retreat to the safety of his room once he was away from her, and the hold she had on him was broken. She had only smiled and nodded, quickly running down the steps to the bar below and out of his sight.

Thinking he would be safe then, he stood at the front desk, checking to see if Seifer had sent anymore messages. It was then that he heard it, the beginning of a sweet and simple melody that he had heard once before. Her voice followed, soft but strong, somewhat quiet, yet expressing a million emotions in a single word. With one song she weaved a spell over his mind, drawing him closer to the staircase until he could just barely see her down below.

_My love for you_

_Burns deep inside of me_

_So strong_

_Embers of times we had_

_And now, here I stand_

_Lost in our memory_

_I see your face_

_And smile_

Her back was turned to the stairs, and he decided that if he acted quickly enough, she might not see him sneak down. He sought out a shadowed corner of the room and seated himself at an empty booth on the other side of the bar, where she couldn't see him, but he could hear her. Every word she sang ensnared him until he knew he couldn't leave, not even if he wanted to. With every note that escaped her lips, he felt like she was calling to him, singing to him and only him, though she didn't even know he was there.

It was intoxicating, like drinking a whole bottle of wine. The longer he listened to her, the more his thoughts blurred and the further away his unhappy memories seemed. Was it possible this woman could chase away that ghost that walked at his side in the daylight, or plagued his nightmares in the world of the dreaming?

As she finished up her last song, he shook away the useless pondering. Of course she would never be able to do that. Nothing would ease the burden he carried aside from Caraway's death. Still, that he even thought that to begin with made him weary of the woman and the affect she had on him. If it was true that she was with Balamb, that would make her his toughest enemy yet.

But if he had to die, he thought to himself as he walked back to the hotel the next day, he could think of no one more suiting than her to be his Angel of Death.

* * *

Petal after petal, they floated upon the gentle breeze until they were carried to the water below. There the tiny pink dots would delicately caress the pond beneath the bridge, vivid color against the plain gray of the sky, reflected by the rippling water. 

She didn't bother to recite the chant that usually accompanied the activity...

_He loves me, he loves me not... It doesn't seem like he's capable of love at all..._

But stood silently, picking one silky petal after another from its home and sending it on a journey in the wind. Flowers from him meant nothing. She received the same kind on the same day at the same time every week. It wasn't that he was thoughtful, or even that he was a creature of habit, but rather, it was because he had scheduled one of his servants to buy them every week and deliver them to her dressing room. She supposed it was his perpetual apology for being too busy to ever come see her, but after the first couple of weeks, it had lost its meaning.

He was quite the fickle one. One moment, he seemed to be a helpless romantic, and the next, he seemed so far away from her that she worried she might never reach him again. It was very different from the feeling she got from her mysterious stranger. She never worried that when she reached out to touch him, he wouldn't be real. He was not so close to her to be so distant, and it held a strange kind of security.

She leaned her elbows on the stone railing, her back to the hotel where she would later perform. A smile curved her lips upward as she caught sight of a familiar reflection, slowly making his way across the bridge, looking at her, but trying not to look obvious about it. She dropped the last few petals into the water, watching his image distort before turning to face him.

"Hi Squall," she greeted cheerfully. He turned away, albeit hesitantly, and made his way for the door. Shaking her head, she ran to catch up, no easy feat in her high heels, and stood in front of the door before he could open it. "You're not going anywhere until you talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about. Just move."

She frowned, noticing how he refused to meet her eyes. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing! Just go away!" he barked.

She jumped slightly at his harsh tone, but refused to move. "So... I take it you didn't like the show last night?"

A frosty gaze met with hers, his eyes widened in surprise. "How did... I mean... I..."

"I saw you sneak in out of the corner of my eyes," she giggled. "I'm glad you came. But I'm sorry if you didn't enjoy yourself."

"It wasn't," he began, but cut himself off with a sigh. "Look, Rinoa, just move. I've got things to get done." She didn't move, just stood there and continued to smile at him. He was trapped within her eyes, and it wasn't until he heard something crinkle in her hands that he was able to look away. "What are those?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"They used to be flowers," she replied, fingering the long green stems. "I thought maybe the petals were tired of being held down by their stems, so I set them free." He arched an eyebrow at her, and she couldn't help but laugh. "Would you buy me flowers if I were your girlfriend, Squall?" she asked innocently.

"No."

"You'd make a great boyfriend," she replied with sincerity.

"Whatever. Look, you're blocking the door. You're going to make people angry doing that."

"Am I making you angry?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed, exasperated.

She giggled again. "So you are capable of emotion, huh? I feel blessed to have seen it. Must be a very rare occurrence."

"I didn't ask you for your opinion on it!" he growled, rubbing his eyes. Seifer's words were still ringing in his mind, and at the moment, he wanted nothing more than to get away from this woman so he could collect his thoughts. "Why are you showing up every where I am, anyway?"

She shook her head. "Seems to me you're the one that ran into me this time."

"You knew I would come here. You knew I was staying here," he accused.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, and I suppose you get crazy women stalking you so often that there's no way it could just be coincidence that we met before. Especially seeing as how I took up a job singing here a good year or so before I met you, knowing you would check in here eventually, because I'm psychic, right? Don't flatter yourself."

"Whatever, I don't care! Just move out of my way."

"Not until you apologize."

"I have nothing to apologize for. Stop being an annoying bitch and just move out of the fucking way!" he bit out, quickly growing tired of her games.

She smiled, though the glint of pain hiding behind her eyes still burned with such intensity that he didn't think his mind would ever shake away the memory of it. "You're always getting so angry, so annoyed with me... It's part of you personality, it won't change, will it?"

"What kind of question is that?" he sighed, the fervor that fueled his temper dying out almost as quickly as it had sprung upon him. Never in his life had anyone made him feel so bi-polar, perfectly tranquil one minute, and raging inside the next.

She didn't speak, but allowed her lips to curve into a knowing smile. He was so very predictable in the way he spoke to her, and yet..._ So unpredictable in the things he does. I never expected him to give in and walk me to the hotel, and certainly not to come watch me sing. It's like there's a whole different side to him that he refuses to let show..._

"Stop... staring at me like that," he grumbled, resisting the urge to squirm beneath the hold and endless depth of her dark eyes.

"Is that nervousness I sense? From you?" She giggled again, though his expression only grew darker at the accusation. "Everything here is always the same, but you... You keep surprising me." She glanced at her watch. "I have five minutes until my performance, and I'm sure after all this, you won't be coming down and watching me, so I'll see you later, Squall. Don't change on me... but don't be afraid to grow."

With those words, so cryptic to his mind, she entered the door and slipped into the hotel. He watched her for a moment and noted with slight interest that not a single person had approached the door when she stood in front of it, but as soon as she walked away from it a stream of people began to file in and out.

Shrugging it off, he followed suit and entered the lobby as well, hesitating in the middle of the room. After a quick glance at both possible destinations, he strode over to the stair banister and leaned on the smooth marble surface. No, he wouldn't come down, she was half-right... but...

She resisted the urge to giggle as she sat down at the piano and spotted his small reflection in her glass of water. _Something different_, she thought. _I was half-wrong for once._


	4. IV: Dreaming of Pain

Chapter 4

Wearily, she brushed her golden bangs back from her eyes and drew a deep breath as she approached the two men that stood, awaiting her presence on the bridge. The old cobblestone pattern clicked rhythmically beneath the heels of her shoes, and one by one, the street lamps blinked on in time with the lights of the city that towered on the other side of the small lake, signaling the end of another day. She had shed her pressed uniform in favor of civilian clothing. She couldn't chance being followed.

"Good evening," she greeted with a curt, professional nod. Her two companions, a man with long auburn hair pulled back off his shoulders, and the other a blonde with a distinctive marking along the side of his face, nodded back to her and waited for her to explain why she had called them there.

"As you know," she began, eyes darting around to make certain they were alone, "We have discovered that the Esthar Syndicate has infiltrated the government, specifically the intelligence department. There's no doubt in my mind that he is working to obtain information that will be useful to their plot of assassinating the president. We need their plan to succeed, though this is not to stop us from terminating any Esthar Syndicate members that prove to be a problem or hindrance to us. Should they start trouble... we are expected to finish it."

"Aside from the man you mentioned seeing in the palace, we found only one other syndicate member. He has been eliminated," the blonde man reported.

She nodded. "Above all else, it is important not to blow our cover. If they discover our presence here, our entire plan will be ruined. Keep this in mind while targeting members of their syndicate. How did the elimination proceed?"

"Pushed him in front of a train," the longhaired man replied with a slow drawl. "Looked like a total accident."

"Very good. You are to continue to carry out orders until further notice. As I said, be cautious. This mission is of the utmost importance to our survival."

With this, she turned and marched away, the briefing finished. She glanced around once more, and, finding nothing, felt her nerves were eased only slightly. Something felt slightly off...

* * *

"How nice of you to supply me with details," Seifer murmured from his place in the metal supports beneath the center of the bridge. Getting there hadn't been easy, but neither was following Quistis there in the first place.

It was hard not laugh as he sat there. She was so certain that Balamb's presence had gone undetected, even while he sat there and listened to them map out their plans. Was she just too cocky, or was she really that much of an amateur? Either way, it didn't matter, it all worked to their advantage.

Seifer climbed up from his spot onto the bridge after waiting for a good hour to assure that all three members had left the area. He began the long journey back to the city, and once he found a working pay phone, he left another message at the hotel for a little meeting of his own.

* * *

It was something border lining obsession, a kind of masochistic addiction he couldn't shake. In the solitude of darkness, hidden away from the masses of sound and fury that called themselves people, he would dig them out, piece by piece from the shadowed and dusty corners of his mind. Like the pages of a worn book that no one else had ever read, only he knew the words and story, line for line until he could repeat them with ease.

He couldn't say what it was that made him reach out for those painful moments of his life, couldn't say what demonic aura possessed him to relive each and every one until he became so desperately lost among them that he was caught drowning in thoughts and mistakes of the past, making his battle to return to the present a nearly impossible struggle. There were times he'd become so entranced in that world, the images, scents, sounds and emotions that had once been all he had known, that he would return to himself with a start, realizing that he'd forgotten to breathe.

When it was time to work, when there were others around him, the instincts that had been drilled into his head for years would sweep over him, and he would become alert, the most vigilant human being imaginable, so deeply ensnared in the world around him that almost nothing could escape his notice. He was the perfect machine for the syndicate, he knew he was nothing more than that to them, and yet, when the room around him would cease to be, and he would find himself once more in the body of a child, he no longer cared. The old sorrows and the grief, placed high upon a self in the innermost chambers of his subconscious would be removed, the dust of years passed wiped away, and the feelings would come rushing back again. He would remember then, exactly why he was in the position he found himself trapped in, and that feeling of blood lust that so often ignited the human soul but had evaded his capture until that point would burn to life within him.

So what story would he pick up with today? Since his arrival in Deling City, he'd been playing through them, mostly in chronological order, as though reviewing the steps taken to get here just as they had been lived was preparation for the ending which was so quickly approaching. There was an anxiousness building in him because of it, something he only ever felt when thinking of his final mission, or, strangely enough, whenever he was around _her._

He shook his head at this, wondering what she would think of his morbid little hobby, and wondered immediately afterward why he should care. Leaning back on his bed, he shook thoughts of the mysterious girl out of his head. He didn't like to think about her. She caused so many unusual feelings, though not always unpleasant, that were beyond the simple, direct set of his emotional comprehension.

Instead of thinking about her, and the odd fluttering of his heart when she smiled, he picked out the next part to his ongoing story, and focused...

_He stared out through the tinted windows of the vehicle at the crumbling gray stone ahead. A mansion of some sort, now fallen irreversibly to shambles in its abandon stood tall against the heavenly shade of azure sky, a sky that did not suit his emotions at the moment in the least._

_At the back of his mind, images of the night before prickled, wishing release or at least recognition but he refused to give in. He couldn't bare to think about the cold and lonely hours spent waiting, lingering in some plan beyond both life and death where every breath of air drawn echoed into eternity until he couldn't be sure that he'd taken that breath at all. After some time, it had become impossible to continue feeding that anxiety and hope with. It drained away as if he were depleting the fuel that kept his life burning. Emptiness bled through his veins, and darkness fell over his mind with a numbing force. He couldn't think, he couldn't feel in the dirt and darkness, the silence of the seemingly endless night. The passage of days could not be counted as he barely registered the difference between sunlight and moonlight, and when another life form had finally strayed close to his hellish prison, he no longer could muster fear or hope, only a tingly, scorching sensation that that started at his finger tips and quickly invaded the rest of his body._

_When she pried open the vent and reached inside, he lunged at her, eyes wide with a primal rage not at all befitting a child. He kicked and punched, and tried to bite, all the while shouting his pain and intent of revenge for the lives he didn't want to accept as being lost to him. Gripping him tightly, she finally restrained the trembling boy, and with the adrenalin that ran through his system now taking its toll, he no longer had the strength to fight her as she picked him up and carried him out to a sleek black car that was parked in the driveway of his home._

_Sitting there now, having arrived at their intended destination, he finally chanced a look at the woman that had brought him here. She was a tall, slender woman with black hair that cascaded down her shoulders and ended at her waist. She had a kind look on her face as she opened his door and knelt down to his level, but even more poignant than the warmth there was a sadness, and he knew what she was going to tell him._

_"They're gone, aren't they?" he asked before she had a chance to speak._

_"As far as we know, yes," she admitted with a sigh. "We're still looking... we haven't lost hope. Oh, look at you... such a little man in the face of all this. You deserve to know the truth, I guess... You can handle it, I believe."_

_"What truth?"_

_"Do you know what your Daddy did for a living, Squall?" she asked gently._

_"He used to be a businessman, Mommy said, but he retired."_

_"Well, that's true, in a way. Your father was a businessman, so to speak, but the business he dealt in... wasn't exactly legal."_

_"What's that mean?"_

_"It means he was doing things he could get arrested for. He headed a syndicate, you see. When your mother became pregnant he decided he should stop. He didn't want you or your sister to get hurt. But the syndicate he used to lead had enemies, and when they found out where he was, they began to chase after him and your family. Those enemies of his... they were really bad men."_

_Here, her voice broke off for a moment, wondering, next for the first time, over the morality of teaching such a young child that the syndicate's enemies were bad, when they weren't really any better themselves._

_"My husband and I took over the syndicate in your father's absence. We were told that if anything ever happened, we should take you and your sister in. That's why you're here now. This is the safest place for you."_

_"What is it? What's a syndicate? And that big house there?"_

_She pressed her lips into a thin line across her face and clasped her hands in her lap. "I'll explain what a syndicate is when you're older. For now, all you need to know about this place is that it's safe. Other children stay here, and I watch over them, too. Now, come inside with me. My husband is here on a visit, and he would love to meet you."_

_He allowed her to help him out of the car, and pressed him face against the soft violet fabric of her dress as they approached the door, where a stern-faced man in a dark suit stood waiting. She handed the man the keys to her car, and he opened the door, holding it open for the two of them to enter._

_The inside of the house seemed to match the outside perfectly with its disheveled appearance. The foyer was coated with dust and cobwebs and there was a spot where the roof had caved in. Sunlight streamed in upon the dingy marble floor and the chunks of stone and plaster scattered about the room. Close to the center, a glass chandelier lay in a heap of ruin, the shattered remnants catching the light and sparkling like it was new and whole once more. She led him carefully through all of this and passed the door, which stood open and crooked upon its hinges, to the main hall, which lay in equal disarray. _

_"I need to talk to my husband alone for a bit, then I'll bring you in to speak with him... in the meantime, there are some people I would like you to meet."_

_She led him down a dark, narrow hallway and down a wooden staircase that creaked and moaned threateningly beneath their slight weight. At the bottom was a single wooden door, which she opened quietly before ushering him in. Inside, dozens of children played and laughed happily in a huge room painted with bright and happy colors. Toys of all kinds imaginable were strewn about, and cheerful sunlight poured in through small window panels high up on the walls. It looked like every child's paradise._

_"You'll stay here for a while, Squall, with the rest of the children. They're just like you... they lost their families also. But I take good care of them here, and I'll do the same for you. I'm Edea, and I'll always be here when you need me." She squeezed his shoulders from behind, then urged him on a few steps away from her. "Go on, I promise I won't be away long. Go meet the other children. We're all one big family here, Squall. Go meet your new brothers and sisters."_

_She turned, and was heading for the door, when a tug on her skirt stopped her. Squall stood, turned toward her, hands fisted in the soft and worn garment as he stared up at her with that same, wild and wide-eyed look._

_"No!" he murmured, quietly at first. "I don't want a new family. I want... I want my family back!" His voice rose into an anguished cry, and her eyes began to tear at the sound of it. "They can't replace them! I want them back! I'll find him! I'll the man who took them from me. I'll... I'll kill him! I'll kill him and get them back!" _

The phone screamed out at him from its place on the hook, and he quickly snatched it up, slightly angered that he'd been disturbed once more. "What?"

"Mr. Lee, you have a message from a Mr. Green," the receptionist's voice answered from the other end of the line. "He says he needs you to meet him at the café so the two of you can go over your recent stock investments."

"Yes, thank you," he replied before slamming the phone back down.

Rubbing his forehead, Squall sighed. Whenever Seifer called, there was always a problem. "The man just attracts trouble," he mumbled, yawning. He glanced quickly at the clock and sighed again. He'd miss Rinoa's performance tonight...

* * *

"We're only here to get information... Keep that in mind," Squall whispered from his place crouched on a broken and twisted fire escape.

Slipping easily through the hole in the shattered window, Seifer kneeled down next to him, squinting against the darkness at the building across from them. "That place looks like it's been abandoned for a while now. Pretty shabby for a base of operations."

"Seifer, did you hear me?" Squall asked with a sigh. "There will be no shooting from you of any sort unless you're returning fire. We don't want them to know that we know about them."

"Don't worry. Wouldn't wanna hurt that pretty blonde of theirs, anyway."

Squall turned to him with a reprimanding glare. "You've been following her around a lot lately."

Seifer held his hands up, fingers spread in a gesture of innocence. "Chill out. I'm not planning on dating the girl or anything. Just want to add her to my list before we drive them out, you know."

"Your list?"

"Yeah, you know... my list of conquests."

Shaking his head, Squall stood abruptly and with the stealth of a street weary feline made his way up the rusted scrap of metal without a single sound escaping into the air. When he found himself at the right angle to peer down into the window of the second story floor in the next building, he seated himself carefully on the fragile step of the staircase. The room revealed by the window was dimly lit by an oil lamp placed on a table in the center of the room. Around the table sat two men, a blonde and brunette with a ponytail. Squall fixed his earpiece into his ear and listened intently as voice came through the static.

"It all seems a bit far fetched," one of them was saying. "I mean, at the rate we're going there won't be anyone to take the President's place. First the President himself, then the vice president... And if Esthar retaliates and takes our man out, too..."

He almost laughed at how easy it was. So that was their plan, to assassinate the Vice President, after he killed President Caraway. The Vice President was affiliated with the Esthar Syndicate, and had promised them full control of Deling City, and thus, of Galbadia, should they get him into office.

No longer feeling the need to stay, as the topic of their conversation had wandered to that of 'hot chicks in politics' he was just about to stand from his position when he caught the reflection of a female figure in the window he'd been looking through. Apparently she was playing look out from further up on the building. He backed himself against the wall instead, watching the reflection carefully as he edged his way to the stairs that would take him back down to Seifer and the broken window they'd come through. From there they could take the staircase down within the safety of the building and leave.

Just as he was reaching the rusted metal stairs the window he'd been watching through flew open and the echo of gunfire rang out. Deciding now wasn't the best time to worry about being sneaky, he scrambled down the stairs and jumped to the bottom, only to be met with an angry blonde that landed at the platform in front of him.

"Pitiful spy work, if I do say so myself," she commented, the barrel of her pistol aimed straight up at his face.

Squall's eyes darted around quickly, wondering where his back up was when the longhaired brunette came crawling up the fire escape behind him. Thinking quickly, he moved to the left and snagged her wrist in one fluid movement, jerking her arm back behind her and crushing her wrist until her hand opened to drop the weapon. He caught the gun before it clattered to the iron grating and held it against her head in threat.

The cowboy-wannabe in front of him made to take a step forward, and Squall put the slightest bit of pressure of the trigger. "I wouldn't if I were you."

"Irvine, there's more than one of them here!" a yell came from the pavement below, and when the man known as Irvine turned to stare back at the source of his interruption, Squall shoved the blonde forward until she collided with Irvine and the two nearly tumbled down the step in a heap.

Squall shot through the window and ran with all he had for the staircase, footsteps pounding against the brittle floorboards as he heard the two outside start to regain their bearings. He was almost to the staircase when the floor beneath him gave a terrible groaning creak, followed shortly by the loud, splintering crack and resounding boom as it caved in beneath him and crashed to the floor below. He could only sit there for a moment, dazed and a little bruised but miraculously unscathed before picking himself up out of the rubble.

"Of all the rotten..."

His voice was cut off as yet another crack sounded through the air. He scrambled over the follow beams of wood, nearly faltering when hot, leaden pain jammed into his shoulder and forced color dots into his line of vision. Managing to stumble only slightly before running for the door again, a barrage of bullets attacking the floor at his heels, he made it out of the building where Seifer stood, a taxi waiting at his side.

"What took you so long? I was getting bored out here waiting for you."

The smirking blonde stepped into the yellow vehicle and slid over to allow Squall in, who slammed the door shut just as a bullet imbedded itself into the trunk of the car. The driver slammed on the gas and tore down the road, causing Squall to slam his injured shoulder into the window.

"Son of bitch!" he hissed out, hands clutching at the wound. "Seifer, you're a dead man!"

"What?" Seifer wondered in mock innocence. "I did my job just fine. Look, I even got us the lovely get-away car." Squall shot a questioning look in the driver's direction, and Seifer shook his head once more. "You really do underestimate me. Do you think I'm that stupid. He's one of ours, Mr. Leader. And look at you, getting shot up like that. Tsk, tsk, very sloppy. We can't go to a hospital, you know that. They'll ask questions. Looks like I'll get to play surgeon tonight."

"Fuck you, I'll do it myself!" Squall growled, in no mood to put up with his subordinate's arrogance.

"Don't think so. Can't get the bullet out by yourself, now can you? And who else can you trust?"

Squall said nothing, turning his attention to the scenery as it flashed by. The thought entered his head, unbidden, of Rinoa's gentle hands upon him, carefully tending his wound and chiding him over his recklessness with genuine concern.

"Squall, did you hear me?" Seifer questioned, shaking him from his vision.

"Whatever, Seifer," he replied as the car pulled to a stop in front of his hotel. "I'll take care of it myself. I'm not in the mood."

With that he left the car, and stumbled back to his room, careful to keep his wound from sight of curious eyes. He cleaned and wrapped it up as best as he could before passing out on his bed in exhaustion, thoughts of a raven-haired woman still plaguing his mind.

* * *

A/N: I know, not much romance here, but the next chapter will be all about the romance, so no worries. 


	5. V: Dreaming of Trust

DBZ Fanfiction Queen: First of all, thank you so much for the long and detailed review, to all of you, in fact. To clear up a few of your questions, it was not actually Squall that was pushed in front of a train. It was written like that to kind of make the reader wonder, if only for a moment. Whether it was another under cover syndicate member, or if they just mistook an innocent for a syndicate member I'm not sure. The reason our now deceased mobster/bystander was pushed in front of a train was to make it look like an accident, as if the bustling crowd waiting alongside the area had just grown too large and he was pushed too close to the edge. As for your second question, given the answer to the first, Irvine wouldn't have recognized Squall to begin with, but it was probably dark enough that he would have problems picking him out again.

Chapter 5

Both his arm and his head hated him with a blinding passion by the time sunlight burned into his vision the next morning, and he had to say that the feeling was mutual. The throbbing pain that shot beneath his skin like scorching electricity sliding through his veins with every pump of his heart was mocking him and his rather foolish decision not to get the wound looked at right away. The bullet was still there, angry and screaming at him with waves of unrelenting agony, refusing to let him forget its presence there. He should have let Seifer see to it the night before, but in a rather uncharacteristic mood, necessity was shoved aside by the cluttered and exhausted weariness that had trapped his mind. He didn't think he could stand having anyone touch him just then, especially Seifer.

He sat up in bed slowly, muscles aching and protesting vehemently, his head weighted with that unpleasant twinge in his forehead that could only come from a mixture of tension and raging sinuses. It was definitely one of those mornings he hated but was well accustomed to, one of those mornings where it seemed the night had chewed up his rest-deprived body with merciless fangs of steel only to spit it back out in tatters, and the world was all too content to piss on his parade and laugh once the night had finally taken leave.

"I have to go to the hospital," came the weary, dread-filled grumbled in a sandpaper voice.

Looking around, and turning his head slowly to do so, he saw that he had bled on the sheets. Lovely. Another little detail to try and hide before one of the maids came in to tidy up his room. But first thing was first... until the feeling of being run over by an eighteen-wheeler subsided, the rest of the world was damn well going to have to wait.

He half-crawled, half-stumbled from the bed and standing on unsteady legs, yanked some clothes on with his good arm. A process that should have taken a minute or less took more than five minutes, the worst delay coming from trying to ease his bloodied arm into the sleeve of a black button down shirt, and then into the sleeve of his coat. It was going to be a very, very long day.

He left the room, still in something of a haze, but he was coherent enough to put the 'do not disturb' sign on the door in hopes it would keep the maids out before he could dispose of the sheet. On the elevator down, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to call from the recesses of his memory the layout of the city he had studied intensely before he left in order to find his way to the hospital farthest away. He was going to have to pull a fake I.D. from his emergency stash and haul ass as soon as his arm was patched up. He hoped the farther away the hospital was from the hotel the less likely some hospital staff member would be to spot him on the street someday.

Normally Squall would have taken the train there, as he was less likely to be remembered or singled out by anyone in such a large mass of people, but he couldn't risk someone accidentally bumping into him today, so a taxi ride was in order. He had the driver drop him off a few blocks from the hospital and decided to walk the rest of the way there himself. As usual in Deling City, the sky had opened up and was unleashing its tears in a torrent, as if to wash the massive monoliths of glass and stone of waste, and the residents of their daily sins. Was that why it rained everyday? To cleanse a sinful city of its wrongdoings? It was a fanciful thought that he quickly scolded himself for bothering to think. A sinner had no place questioning other sinners, he believed.

The hospital, a towering goddess of mercy in his eyes, despite its bland embodiment of squat, boxy buildings with a blurry and sickeningly mediocre color of off-white was just a few blocks away when a shout of his name reached his ears, and a hand landed heavily upon his shoulder in a friendly slap.

The sound that escaped his throat was one he couldn't define nor describe, and the sensation, something so hauntingly excruciating that his eyesight danced with black dots and the world threatened to fall out from beneath him, as if the feeling itself were a rusted dagger searing white hot through his mind caused him to lose balance and lean heavily against the wall of the nearby building. When his senses returned to him what seemed like a life time later, he found himself beneath an awning at the entrance of a shop he'd been passing, a very confused and worried Rinoa Heartilly standing before him.

"Squall what..."

When her words died away do suddenly, something he found odd in a girl that seemed to like so much the sound of her own voice, he looked up to find her inspecting the fingers on the hand that had slapped him. It was hard to tell beneath the shadow of the awning, and in the gray, colorless light of the sky at that, but it was very obvious that some thick, dark liquid was smeared on her pale, slender fingertips... liquid that had seeped through both his shirt and his coat.

Before he could speak or walk away as he half-intended to do, she had a rigid grip on the sleeve of his coat, dragging him along with her away from the hospital.

"Rinoa, what the hell do you call yourself doing?" he barked out in irritation.

"I could ask you the same question, mister, wandering around in your condition!" she replied in a voice that left no room for argument or disagreement. He sighed in grudging resignation. She seemed to be in Concerned Mother Mode, and if his past experiences with Edea were any indication, there would be no stopping her now. Still, he had to try...

"Rinoa, just let me go on to the hospital. That's where I was headed before you fucking came up and attacked me!"

She stopped for a moment and turned a sharp gaze upon him that, just a few years earlier would have had him hanging his head sheepishly. Oh how he remembered those looks...

"Don't you take that tone with me, Mister!" she hissed, glittering chocolate eyes narrowed dangerously... she was daring him to challenge her one more time.

She abruptly turned back around and yanked him through a nearby set of doors. On the other side was a lobby of some sort but she paid no mind with anything there, yanking him around, none too gently, to the elevator.

"Where are you taking me?"

He wondered for a moment if he should have bothered speaking, for he anticipated another biting look and authoritative command, but she answered quite calmly instead with, "Up to my apartment so I can doctor you up."

"I don't need your help!" he growled, attempting to pull away from her once more.

"The hell you don't! Stop being such a big baby!"

"Stop trying to treat me like one!"

"You're bleeding if you haven't noticed!"

"Didn't I just tell you I was going to the damn hospital!"

The elevator doors slid open with a ding, and luckily it was empty inside. Rather than bothering to answer him, she jerked him inside roughly and as soon as the doors were closed and the button to the fifteenth floor had been pressed, she rounded on him.

The offending coat sleeve was quickly and efficiently pulled from his arm, but she wasn't quite as patient with the shirt beneath. A quick wrench from her hand had his shirt open down the middle, several buttons flying off in the process. Good lord, he was being molested in the elevator!

"R-Rinoa... uh..."

It suddenly wasn't quite as easy to stand up to her, much less speak. Of all the things he'd seen and all the predicaments he'd been in, this was something he had no idea how to handle... hell, he couldn't even fight the progressive reddening of his face. It seemed, however, that she was only interested in getting the shirtsleeve off his arm so that she could inspect his wound. This should have made him feel relieved but the fact that he was exposed in a foreign place with an unpredictable woman wouldn't allow for any peace of mind.

"You call this bandaging?" she murmured, more to herself than him. "It's a wonder you haven't bled to death! How long have you had this wound?"

"That's none of your business."

"I'm making it business, now tell me!"

He took a deep breath and calmly stated his stance on the matter. "No."

"Fine then, you big baby."

Signing and shaking her head in a disapproving fashion, she gently moved the blood-soaked wraps around his arm away from the skin and gingerly allowed her fingers to brush the wound in inspection. He nearly leapt across the elevator from her.

"Ow, don't touch it!"

Her eyes rolled in exasperation. "Yes Squall, because I'm going to heal it with my psychic abilities, right?"

Another high-pitched ding rounded off her sarcastic remark, and suddenly she was pulling him half-shirtless down a long narrow corridor, lit dimly with softly glowing sconce lights. Luckily for him, the hall seemed to be empty of life, much as the lobby itself had. It seemed everyone but Rinoa had a job or some other kid of life to attend to that didn't involve poking their noses into his business.

"Rinoa, don't you have somewhere to be?" he tried.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do," she responded, stopping before a door at the end of the hall and carefully digging through her purse for her keys while keeping her arms locked around his to prevent escape. "Right here, tending to this monstrosity you call fixing up a wound."

"I thought I did very nicely, considering how late it was," he grumbled as she pushed the door open and led him in.

"Ah-hah! So it was last night, and you were just now going to get it looked at? No, no, we can't have this. Apparently you don't know how to take care of yourself."

Her apartment was much how he'd expected it to be, open, airy, the walls a calming and tranquil hue of blue that reminded Squall of summer days spent in lethargy when Edea would take him and the rest of the syndicate orphans to the beach. The furniture was a cushiony white made of some soft and fluffy material, like sedentary clouds in the never-changing sky. If her goal was to make her guests feel welcome in the cozy little space she called home, she'd done a good job, the heaven-mimicking décor instantly bringing to the surface of his mind that summer sky long ago forgotten but always sought after once it had faded from his existence. He felt some of his tension slip away, and the heat that seemed to radiate off her body so close to his was no longer such a foreign and unwelcome force, no more than the heat of a clean and pure sun scorching the earth from overhead was. The only thing that struck his mind as odd was that there were no pictures lining the shelves of her small-white painted bookcase, nor were there any family portraits hanging in ordered fashion upon the wall. Before he could stop himself the inquiry slipped away.

"Why are there no pictures?"

Slightly startled by such a question, or moreover, such a question from such a man as he, she hesitated a moment before responding with one of her own. "What do you mean?"

"You struck me as the kind of girl that would have pictures of her family up around her house," he explained.

She let out a soft, "Oh," and pushed him over to sit on a stool at the bar separating her small kitchen from the living room. He found himself so intent on catching her answer that he didn't notice at first when she removed his coat and shirt from the other side of his body and draped them over the counter.

"My family and I have been at odds for some time now," came the quiet answer, one that sounded terribly rehearsed and impersonal as it fell from her lips. "So you can't blame me for not wanting to put pictures up of the faces that anger me so much."

"So you're holding a grudge?"

She disappeared into a door opposite the kitchen without answering, and returned quickly with a first aid kid kit and a few other tools in her hand. As she set up the things she'd need along the counter next to him, she replied, "Let me guess, I didn't strike you as someone who would hold a grudge?"

"Maybe," he answered. "I would think that if you had it in your head to dislike someone you would be just as determined and persistent in holding something against them as you would be in pursuing someone you do like."

The corners of her lips pulled into an upward curve at this, and she quirked a sleek raven brow at him as her hands gently removed the bandages he'd wrapped himself with. "Are you implying that I _like _you Mr. Leonhart?"

"It would certainly seem that way."

A giggle bubbled up within her throat as she moved to the sink and dampened a cloth to clean away the dried blood. "_Like _like, you mean? You think I have a crush on you?"

He was silent for a moment, willing his vocal cords still as the cloth came in contact with the hole in his arm. No matter how careful and tender she was, it still hurt, but the last thing he intended to do was lose his cool in front of her and display his pain.

"You gonna answer me?"

As she retracted the now vibrantly red cloth and began dabbing a bit of gauze with alcohol, he said, "I don't know. The way you've been treating me today, it's like you think I'm your little boy or something."

This comment only brought about even more laughter. "The way you've been acting today, it would certainly seem like you are a little boy."

He took a deep breath and held it, body rigid as the nerves screeched around the tightly lodged bullet that was slowly sliding back. When the offending object was finally free he let out his breath in rush. "I'm trying to take care of myself. How is that acting like a little boy?"

"By not taking help you obviously need when it's offered to you," she explained, doctoring the vicious tear in his flesh with alcohol and iodine. "And look at you, so brave! Refusing to speak just so you don't let any of your pain show. Do you think, Mr. Macho, that I'm dumb and I don't realize how much this hurts?"

"It's not that, it's just... my pain is none-"

"Of my business? Didn't I tell you before that I made it my business?" She began wrapping him up again, tight enough to keep the wound closed, but with enough room that it didn't cut off his circulation. "So you want to tell me then, what you were doing that got you shot?" She felt him stiffen at this, but shook her head. "I'm not going to call the cops, Squall, if that _is _your real name," she offered teasingly. "You had that look about you anyway... I'd say this little bullet here had something to do with business, right?"

Sometimes her perceptiveness was downright frightening, and there was little he could in the way of denial that wasn't flat-out futile, and an insult to her intelligence. "I suppose you'll want me to leave now."

"No, actually, I want you to stay for dinner," she responded in a pleasant voice. "Not often a girl gets a real live mobster in her house."

He turned to face her sharply, a surprised look in his eyes. "But I-"

"I trust you not to kill me Squall. And if you do, I'll haunt you for the rest of your life, anyway. Your secret's safe with me... I owe you my life, remember? It's the least I could do."

He turned away from her as she finished up. "You shouldn't be involved with me."

"You involved yourself with me that day at the train station, so too bad. Someone has to look out for you if you're leading such a dangerous life style."

"There you go with the mother attitude again," he grumbled.

Her laughter rang out in the air, a sound that he secretly knew he'd never tire from but would never in a million years try to purposely coax from her. "I'm not your mother." Her arm slid around his good shoulder from behind and she leaned against his back so her breath burned a silken trail along the side of his neck and near his ear. "The kind of thoughts I have of you aren't in any way fitting of a mother thinking about her son," she murmured quietly, and an unbidden tremor crawled up his spine at what felt like an impossibly soft brush of her lips just below the hair-line at the back of his neck. He couldn't help but wonder, however, if he'd only imagined it.

He felt her head lay itself on her arm upon his shoulder then, and he realized she must have been appreciating the view from the large window in the wall in front of them. Why she had to do it on him, however, he didn't know. He was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with her close proximity, her warmth and scent washing over his senses until he felt dizzy, but almost in a good way. It was just such a strange, unfamiliar feeling...

Rinoa on the other hand was enjoying herself quite a bit. Her eyes aimed at the window, she had all the appearance of taking in the view of the buildings all around, when she was actually indulging in his reflection, the sleek, firm muscles of his chest beautifully defined in the tepid gray light that invaded from beyond. He was certainly a sight to behold, and even better, he felt so warm and alive beneath her... so stable, like he wouldn't disappear without warning. She wasn't sure why or when or how this fear of loss came to her, but she didn't feel it when she was with him. Rinoa took a big, deep breath, filling her senses with everything that was him, the scent of after shave and soap, shampoo and just a hint of gun powder and death... is that what had given his occupation away? It didn't matter... he was quite obviously not very happy with what he did, and that made a world of difference.

"Do you like spaghetti?" she questioned out of the blue.

"I... guess. Why?"

"I told you I wanted you to stay for dinner. Spaghetti is about the only thing I can cook semi-well," she replied, sliding away from him.

"Rinoa, I have things to do."

"If you had gone on to the hospital, Mister Leonhart, you'd still be sitting there now and you know it. You don't have anything planned."

"But I-"

"Sit!" she commanded, pulling some meat from her refrigerator and grabbing the pan from the dish drainer in the sink. "Look, I'm all ready in the process of going to trouble over you, you can't just leave now."

"You think I actually care?"

Once the meat was safely cooking in the pan, she snatched up his shirt and coat and headed back toward the room she'd gotten the first aid kit from. "Well, unless you want to wander back to the hotel shirtless, then I guess you do."

"Hey, where are you going with those!" a slight note of panic edged into his voice against his will.

"To wash them. There's blood all over them, you're not wearing them out like that."

"They're my clothes, I'll wear however the hell I want!" he shouted in response but she shut the door on his comment, leaving him in silence for the moment.

He glanced around the room, the alluring blue steadily darkening as the sun sank languidly behind the towering human-made structures that rose into the sky. Squall slipped off the stool and crossed over the window, peering down into the streets below. Directly across the street was City Hall, and from here, he realized, he could see all of their hidden guards and what looked like a satellite of some sort perched on the roof. From here, he could learn the pattern of the guards' patrols if he watched at different times of the day.

He heard the door give a soft click as it shut behind her, but she didn't move from it. In his peripheral vision he could see her, clad in her azure sweater and leaning against the door she'd just come out of with her eyes trained on him. For a moment he wondered if he had done something she was displeased with, or if she expected him to say something. The woman could be so confusing it was hard to tell just what she wanted. When he chanced a look at her, however, he found that her eyes were not expectantly drilling holes into his face, as he would have thought... in fact, her eyes weren't on his face at all. He felt his cheeks begin to burn once more, as if someone were holding a lighter to his face, and he quickly turned away from her.

"Uh... Rinoa?"

"Yes?" her voice was lower now, a husky velvet that sent the heat in his face rolling through the rest of his body.

"The meat is burning."

The look on her face reflected that of a person that had just had a bucket of cold water thrown in their face. "Oh!"

He couldn't help the smirk that lifted one side of his lips, and allowed himself a very small appreciative glance at her retreating form in compensation. Everything as he knew it seemed to be quickly falling apart... and he was having trouble caring.

* * *

A/N: Well what do you know, I'm still alive! A fairly useless chapter as far as plot goes, but a great chapter for fluff and relationship development. Anyway, while I have your attention for a moment, I must confess I haven't simply been hibernating these past few months. I started an account on fictionpress where I have a story I'm working on by the name, 'In Living Color'. I'm under the pen name 'Delusions of Reality' (someone took Dark Raion all ready, or so it said... who's stealing my name? Same thing happened when I made a new AIM account... grr...) and I kindly ask you all to mosey on over and take a look at it. It's quite a bit different than anything I've done so far, being both in first-person narrative and having a heavy emphasis on humor rather than drama (although there's plenty of that, too) so if you have the time, I'd appreciate it. And no, writing that didn't cut into time that would otherwise have been spent on fanfiction, rather, it filled the time that I was brain-dead and drained of inspiration for fanfics with something else to do. 


	6. VI: Dreaming of Darkness

DBZ Fanfiction Queen: My, you're full of questions. I don't mind, though. No actually, Squall didn't wake up in the morning. He seems to have developed a nasty little habit of waking up at noon or later on most days, though this is something I haven't quite expanded on yet, because it's not a very relevant detail right now. Between his extremely late start, the taxi ride (and keep in mind, this is a big city and he was heading to the hospital farthest away from the hotel), the walk, and everything else, it was beginning to get dark by the end of the fic. It gets dark earlier this time of year in Deling. So sayeth the fanfic writer, so it shall be!

Disclaimer: I don't own the song 'Flying Teapot' by Yoko Kanno.

Chapter 6

_The pistol wavered in his sweat-soaked grip, faint wisps of smoke curling away from the barrel as though the instrument of death were releasing its remorse to dissipate in the frostbitten air, absolved from any guilt or responsibility. If only he could release his own burden so easily..._

_An ever growing puddle of sin was rolling steadily across the floor toward his feet, slick crimson that looked blacker than evil in the dim room. Any minute now it would touch him, taint him, swallow him- but he couldn't move. His legs trembled beneath the slight weight of his body as it threatened to collapse in on itself. His own blood had turn to icy sludge in his veins, and his lungs felt as though they had shriveled away in his chest. The sharp rasp of the biting winter air in the back of his throat was the only way he knew for certain he was still breathing, because it felt as though he were suffocating. What had he done?_

_The touch of wetness on his big toe sent a jolt through his body, and he sent the gun flying across the room as though the metal had scorched his flesh, or perhaps just some deeper part of him that couldn't be seen in the light. _

_Killer. Murderer. Sinner. This was the legacy left to him, the path his father had paved for him when he threw his life away. If the stupid asshole had never died this never would have happened. If he hadn't dragged his mother into the fight, this never would have happened. If he hadn't been helpless and weak, cowering in shadows while his parents fought for him... if he hadn't been helpless..._

_"But you're not anymore, are you?"_

_He turned slowly, dragging his feet ever so carefully out of the liquid sin devouring the floor. The expression she wore on her face as she leaned against the doorframe was unlike any he'd ever seen on her face before, but there were facets of familiar expressions lurking within this new one. Sadness, deep and heart wrenching, held a tight grip on something that almost looked like pride... she was proud of him?_

_"No, you're not a little boy anymore, are you?" the whisper tore painful and raw from Edea's mouth as her gaze glued itself to some distant corner far from him and the mess he'd made. "You've grown, Squall Leonhart. You realize you can never go back now... now that you've taken your first life."_

_The trembling eight-year old before her forced a façade of indifference, trying his damnedest to mask the fear and horror she'd seen so poignantly radiating from his fragile physique before she'd made her presence known. "I'm not a child," he ground out in a voice that quivered beneath the weight of badly feigned nonchalance. "I had no choice. He would've taken you and Cid away, and then where would I go? Some orphanage? I don't think so... he brought it on himself."_

_Edea finally turned her eyes to the prone body, and winced slightly as a small, golden shield glinted in the sea of blood. He must've flashed it at Squall, thinking he'd gain the boy's trust that way._

_"Squall," she spoke out in a voice so thin and frail that it seemed a simple harsh word or angered scowl would shatter it, "never blame your victims to shirk responsibility for what you've done to them. This is... an ugly world we live in. You know that now, if you know nothing else. It's true that some people might invite harm unto themselves by intruding where they do not belong, but you're still the one that pulls the trigger. Never forget that. Never forget what you've done and what you do, or you will never retain any bit of humanity. Do you hear me?"_

_He shook his head fervently and she could tell the composure he'd tried so hard to erect around his broken spirit was cracking. "No... I don't want to be human, Matron. Humans fail, humans die. Humans are helpless, and I won't be, never again! I'll show Caraway who the real coward is! I'll make him pay and he'll know I'm not helpless..."  
_

_"Squall..."_

_The tone stopped him immediately, and he turned to find the woman that had cared for him for years on her knees, silver streaks painting lines of suffering down her cheeks. She reached for him, her hand making an almost painful grip on one arm as she dragged him to her. With her free hand she turned his head and forced him to look at the bloody footprints he'd left behind, glimmering in restless silence up from the floor._

_"Do not forget that you are flesh and blood," she hissed out in a cracking voice. "You are just as human as the lives you take and deep down I know that you're frightened and ashamed of what you've done. Don't lose that, Squall or you'll lose everything, I promise you."_

"But what do I have to lose? What have I ever had to lose?"

The darkness of memories passed faded away, reality rushing back as he wondered over the older woman's advice. She seemed so adamant, but perhaps she just didn't understand. She had a husband, and dozens of surrogate children. What did he have, really? Just himself, and so long as he was living, he wouldn't be helpless to petty emotions and everyone would know it, just how strong he could be.

_"Are you there? Can you hear me?"_

He closed his eyes, slipping further and further from consciousness. Yes, yes, he would be strong and no one would hold him down.

_"Are you there?"_

Sleep and what little peacefulness of mind he could find there were calling wordlessly to him and he was letting himself answer, drifting away gently into its comforting embrace, the voice still echoing quietly in his mind.

"Yes... I'm here."

* * *

"Lay your heart

_Lay your soul_

Upon my magic carpet 

_Now we are flying_

_To Venus just to kill some time for tea"_

He should have been looking out the window he was seated next to, studying the guard shifts of the city hall, but he couldn't seem to look away from her. Her mirthful brown eyes were locked with his, twinkling with laughter she couldn't express because she was putting her voice to use by practicing one of her songs. She sat at a small, slightly rundown piano, fingers gliding effortlessly across the keys and her voice entrancing his senses. She really was singing to him and him alone this time, and the thought, the feeling of it, caused a furious tingling in the pit of his stomach and leaden sensation in his spine.

"Remember Surrender There's nothing you can do 'Cause love's such a joke Like a little jack in the box, you know" 

She finished off her song and collapsed into a fit of giggling. "You're the first guy I've ever serenaded, you know?"

He rolled his eyes as she stood from her seat and wandered into the kitchen. "Whatever."

Her voice was still ringing pleasantly in his ears, but with her eyes no longer trained on him and the silence closing in, he could finally get around to doing what he'd come there for. He glanced back at the building across the street and began making mental notes of things he'd want to remember.

"So what's so interesting about my window, huh?"

He didn't hear her come up behind him, and almost jumped in surprise at hearing her voice. "Nothing, just enjoying the view," he replied in an almost mechanical voice.

She sighed and seated herself next to him, leaned against the windowsill. "What are you really here for Squall?"

"You're the one that invited me."

"I know that," she tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder. "And I'm glad you're here. I like having you here. It's usually so quite, and I get so lonely..."

"You like having me here, or you like having just anyone here?"

She smacked his arm playfully before returning her hand to his shoulder. "Having just anyone here is better than having no one here, but having you here is better than having just anyone here. See? It's just... I didn't really expect you to come. It isn't like you."

"You don't know me," he bit out before he could stop himself.

His gaze had gone, almost automatically back to the city hall, and she followed his gaze there. "The second time I ran into you, you were sitting in front of City Hall, watching it. And now... You're going to do something there, aren't you? You realized when you were here before that I had a good view of the place. That's why you're here." Her voice dropped in obvious disappointment. "You're using me."

Something nameless buried deep inside radiated an unpleasant sting at the tone, but he scowled outwardly. "Don't blame me if you were stupid enough to think someone like me actually wanted to spend time with you."

He expected her to cry out in protest of his harsh words, but in the window's reflection, he could only see her frown in defiance of the liquid that built quite suddenly at the corners of her eyes. "So who are you going to kill there?" she inquired in a voice edged painfully in icy steal.

His eyes widened just slightly at the bluntness of her question. "I'm not telling you a damn thing."

"Does it make you feel important, using people and killing them?" she kept on. "Will you kill me too once you're done with this place?"

He stood up abruptly, leaning close until his face was only inches from her. "If I wanted you dead I'd have killed you all ready, if you must know. Don't think I won't change my mind about that if you keep pushing me."

"Who says I'm pushing?" she asked softly. "This is what you do. If you're so ashamed of it, maybe you shouldn't be doing it."

"You don't know anything."

She started to speak, but stopped herself with a sigh. "You're right, I don't. I don't know why you are what you are, and I told myself from the beginning that I wouldn't judge you because of that. It's just... I don't understand. You're some kind of mobster... you probably kill people all the time, and yet you saved my life that day."

"Don't read too much into it. It was only reflex."

"Do you ever... think about it? What it means to those people's families when you kill them? How they must feel?"

"Loss is a natural part of life, isn't it?"

"Dying of disease or a natural disaster... that's natural. Getting gunned down isn't."

"Well too damn bad, because it happens all the time."

The frown returned to twist her lips downward. "How can you be so callous? Haven't you ever lost anyone?" She was rewarded with a sharp, deadly flicker of his frosted cerulean eyes. "I see," she murmured.

"The strong survive and the weak die. That's how it works."

"We're all weak sometimes, Squall."

A disgusted sound tore from his throat, and he headed for her front door wordlessly. Before he could make it there, two hands fisted in his sleeve, and he allowed himself to be held back, the will to struggle evaporating from his body.

"You'll... be back tomorrow, won't you?"

"Why the hell would you want me back if you know what I'm going to do? Doesn't that make you just as bad, willingly letting me use you? No... You actually think you can change something. Don't waste your time."

"You're really a good person. On the inside, somewhere."

"You see something there because you want to see it, that's all." He turned to look at her over his shoulder. "I won't be back. You obviously have no sense of self-preservation, so maybe someone else needs to have some for you, and the best way I can do that is by staying away."

Her face suddenly broke into an overjoyed smile and she pulled him around to face her. "See! See! You just proved my point right there! You're trying to do something good for me by staying away." His mouth opened and the beginnings of something rude and vulgar started to slip out, but she cut him off. "Too bad for you that I won't let you stay away. I'll hunt you down if I have to."

"Don't you have a fiancé to worry about?"

"Aww, are you jealous?"

"You're crazy," Squall growled and tugged his arm away from her. "I don't give a shit about you."

She giggled. "What a very sweet thing to say. You must charm women into your arms left and right. I wonder, what would it take to charm you into mine?"

"Uhh..."

"Is the mighty Squall _blushing_?" She leaned up on her tip toes and kissed him on the cheek before he could dodge her. "I'm flattered, really. So, do you like chicken? I was thinking of making that for dinner tomorrow. Watching really does go more smoothly on a full stomach, don't you think?"

"Why are you doing this?"

She only smiled at his dumbfounded question. "I'm not sure, really. I'll let you know when I find out." With that, she ushered him out the door, but leaned in the frame and allowed her eyes to linger on him a moment longer before she said, "You'll come watch me tomorrow, won't you? At the hotel? We'll have an early dinner and then we can go together, since you'll be heading back there, anyway."

He didn't tell her that he'd tried his best never to miss a performance since the first one he watched. She was all too smug as it was, thinking she had correctly pegged him as a 'good guy'. Hell, he didn't even want to admit to himself that he liked watching and listening to her so much, so he just shrugged in reply. "Maybe."

He expected her smile to falter, at least slightly, but it only grew. "Much better than the resounding 'no' I had expected. See? We're making progress with you all ready!"

Squall rolled his eyes. "So I'm a project now?"

"Would you prefer to be my new play thing, instead?"

He just shook his head and started down the hall, swiftly turning his back on her. She laughed, just a little. "Don't worry, I was only kidding. You aren't either of those things to me," she called. By then, he was far enough down the hall that the whisper that fell from her lips afterwards never reached his ears. "You can't see it for yourself, but I know... You're far too strong and far too fragile to be anyone's toy."

* * *

Important A/N: This has been sitting on my floppy disk for months now, just as is. It never really felt complete enough to post, but recently, it occurred to me that maybe it never will. Sometimes, you just hit a wall you, know? Maybe you don't want to stop, but something still gives out and you can't go forward anymore. Well, I wouldn't say that I can't go forward anymore, but rather, that my path has changed course.

I guess when you write stories for the same fandom for three years, it gets a little old eventually. Working with the same characters, the same personalities... it gets stale after a time, I think, no matter how many different situations you put them in or how many facets of their life and personality you try to explore. Long story short, I think I reached a point where, as a writer, I stopped growing through fanfiction. When I started writing a story on fictionpress, I expected it would simply be an outlet for me to vent to when I got tired of all the drama involved with my fanfiction- that's why it's a humor story. Exploring this new way of writing, however, opened the door to trying even more new things, and before I knew it, I was working on all kinds of original ideas without giving my fanfiction a second thought. I was reluctant to let go of what was a zone of familiarity for me, hence why I never announced an official hiatus until now, but I think its time to face up to the truth.

I'm not quitting fanfiction. I still want to finish the stories I have open, though it might take me quite some time to do so. By the time I get around to wrapping some of my stories up, or even updating them, you all might have long since forgotten about them, but I will continue trying. I highly doubt that, despite some of the new ideas I had come up with ages ago to write about, I will be starting any new stories. I don't know when you can expect to see updates from me. I'm going to attempt to be more active with my co-author project, as that is not a story solely dependant on me and my whims, but overall, I guess you can call this an indefinite semi-hiatus. My zone of familiarity has shifted, and when I look around at this place now, there are so many new faces. Plenty to entertain you guys in my absence, ne? Now that I've babbled on forever, I suppose I'll conclude with...

Goodnight. Goodnight but not goodbye, because I'm confident we'll see one another again. Someday. Dark Raion


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